New Delhi, March 20: Legal experts say it would be almost impossible for the courts to intervene in the cash-for-vote controversy and provide new momentum to the investigations the way they had done in the 2G scandal.
Just as the CBI’s telecom probe was languishing before the judiciary’s prodding, so is Delhi police’s inquiry into the bribery allegations relating to the July 2008 trust vote, now back in the spotlight following a WikiLeaks report.
But legal experts say that since the matter involves MPs, the courts would neither want to step in by themselves nor be too keen to take up public interest litigations or corruption cases on the matter.
“The WikiLeaks story is only hearsay. It is not evidence at all in the eyes of the law. Legally, no court will take cognisance of this,” constitutional expert C.S. Vaidyanathan said.
He admitted, though, that a court case or a PIL could be filed. Besides, as a starting point, there’s the Rs 1 crore that the BJP waved in the House as “evidence” and that is now in the custody of the Delhi police.
Still, it would be difficult to start cases against the accused MPs leave alone convict them, the experts said. “The issue of parliamentary privileges would come in,” Vaidyanathan said.
Article 105(2) of the Constitution gives MPs immunity from court proceedings for “anything said or any vote... in the legislature or any committee thereof”.
This rule can raise legal paradoxes, as seen during the JMM bribery case relating to the 1993 no-confidence vote faced by the P.V. Narasimha Rao government.
The Supreme Court had then ruled that the immunity applied to the bribe takers who voted but not to any MP who may have taken the money but failed to vote. Nor would the bribe givers be immune.
The issue became so controversial that the top court later referred the ruling to a larger bench, which is yet to hear it after 11 years.
Those MPs who are not immune, the court said, could be prosecuted as public servants under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1986. But a chargesheet can only be filed after taking permission from the Speaker, as the apex court ruling itself noted.
“Dr (Subramaniam) Swamy too had to face this hurdle in the 2G case since (then telecom minister) A. Raja was a minister. The issue was resolved after he resigned,” Vaidyanathan said.
Then, even if it was established that the MPs were carrying cash or had received cash, it would difficult to prove that it was meant to get them to vote in a particular way, Vaidyanathan said.
The courts would be unwilling to take the Speaker — and by extension, Parliament — on, especially after the controversy over the respective jurisdictions of the judiciary and the legislature during the 2005 cash-for-query scandal.
Parliament had then expelled some members, and the apex court upheld the expulsions. But the then Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, had ignored a court notice to come and defend his decision.
